Page 454 - Cultural Studies of Science Education

35 Australian Torres Strait Islander Students 429

Standard Australian English and Torres Strait Creole. We found there are no direct
translations for the abstract concepts of energy and force. We looked! This finding
in itself was not surprising. Indigenous Australian languages both new and old are
subtle, dynamic and highly context specific languages. Energy and force as consti-
tuted in junior science curriculum are abstracted notions, both terms a shorthand for
a constellation of practical applications in specific contexts. We could not find any
Torres Strait Creole term for energy, in the sense that energy is defined as the capacity
to perform work and is measured through its effects. There are words such as inzin
meaning engine; wok = work; nokop = stop working; aute = switch off; opene and
prese = switch on; lektrik = electricity. But the meta-category energy as constituted
by science curriculum documents is untranslatable.
In terms of force, there are a number of transitive verbs in Torres Strait Creole
to describe force actions, but these terms do not and, in all likelihood, cannot capture
the meta-category meaning of the term force. Hilary searched through Shnukal’s
(1988) dictionary of Torres Strait Creole and found verbs relating to force acting in
specific contexts including mube meaning to move; asmape meaning to hoist, lift,
lift up; kaumdaun meaning to descend; poldaun meaning to fall off or fall over;
poldaun daun meaning to fall down; spidmape meaning to accelerate, increase
speed; uke (var. uki) meaning to hook and pull in a fish; amare meaning to hammer
or knock; apu (var. apo, apowe) meaning to piggyback or carry; bange meaning
strike or hit; ploke meaning to hit with a stick or other object; paspas meaning to
get stuck (be unable to pass); slu meaning to turn; slu raun meaning to tack into the
wind; and pose meaning to directly force something to move when it is stuck. Note
that pose is a verb and cannot be substituted for the concept noun force in English.
While Torres Strait Creole is linguistically derived from English, this remarkable
language reproduces and reflects Islander ways of thinking and knowing. It doesn’t
reproduce western curriculum categories, but it does have a multitude of terms for
force(s) in action.
Hilary wondered whether the action verbs for science inquiry skills could be
reasonably translated to Torres Strait Creole. This is the limit of what we found:
“observe” might approximate luk, lukraun; “compare with” might approximate
olsem; “hypothesise” might approximate kole, which is translated by Shnukal
(1988) as meaning “to claim”; decide might approximate gad main; evaluate might
approximate ting and ting baut. We couldn’t find Creole terms equivalent to design
experiments, follow procedures, judge, conclude, generalise, theorise, classify,
describe and report as outlined in the science curriculum. Yore (2008) points out
theoretical notions of causality within western science do not sit neatly alongside
indigenous ontological and epistemological perspectives, particularly in terms of
relationships between observer and observed – the categories used to make claims
about reality and explanations about cause. There are epistemological differences
in how knowledge claims come to be known, the methods and procedures used to
study phenomena, and the types of evidence used to justify and explain a knowledge
claim or event. This being acknowledged doesn’t mean translations for the scientific
process skills taught in middle school are improbable. We have recently consulted
with tropical language experts within the Cairns Institute to help us with this problem.